Beef Wellington

Unsurprisingly, my first attempt at cooking meat did not go off without a hitch. Then again, perhaps one of the hardest dishes to accomplish wasn’t the best place to start.

It began well, after cooking the beef for the longest time the recipe suggested, it was browned on the outside and looked ready for me to continue onto the next section. As per the recipe, I set it inside the fridge to finish cooling after fifteen minutes outside the oven.

While it was cooling, I moved onto the mushrooms and quickly learned the importance of measuring oil. For things like pasta, eyeballing it is normally fine, though that was not the case for this. After the mushrooms had been cut (it doesn’t matter what the recipe says, a food processor will save at least twenty minutes of dicing) and softened the appropriate amount, I drained the excess oil. After adding the wine and waiting ten minutes, I drained the residual liquid that had still not been absorbed.

Finally, the time had come to wrap the meat in the prosciutto, and after staring at the instructions for some time, I decided to wing it.

I’d say it went rather well. What the recipe did not highlight, however, was that the puff pastry should be defrosted by this point, so once the wrapped beef had cooled, the pastry could be added. It was during this mild panic that I forgot my family had a microwave and stuffed the frozen dough into a ziplock and covered it in hot water. I would not advise using this method. Use a microwave.

Unfortunately, following the chaos of the pastry practically melting off while I was wrapping it, and the baking process taking an hour longer than the recipe called for (despite a smaller cut of beef being used) I forgot to document its final form. Which, oddly enough with the markings on the dough, looked like a pineapple. It did not taste like one in the slightest.

As a whole, while the dish tasted pretty good (the majority of the flavor being supplied by the mushrooms), it wasn’t particularly worth the time. However, I now have a much better idea of the process and time required to properly cook beef. Something that will no doubt come in handy in the future.